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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. In September 2012 Emma Osborne decided that the Mystery Cat Study Group really deserved a blog of its own within the CFZ Blog Network.

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in. So after about six months of regular postings on the main bloggo Corinna took the plunge and started a 'Watcher of the Skies' blog of her own as part of the CFZ Bloggo Network.

We are still carless, but rather than jump
into anything stupid I am waiting for the right one to come along. I would like
another Mercedes C250 like I used to have in 1999/2000 but I am going to wait
and see. The night before last I watched The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park (2013)
on BBC iPlayer. It was billed at featuring Mick Taylor as a "special guest" so I
was expecting some classy blues stylisations like the ones from the Glastonbury
show, but my favourite guitarist was - I am afraid - conspicuous by his absence
except strumming along on the encore. Disappointing, I am afraid. However, he is
there for everyone to see on the live version of 'Tubular Bells' (also on BBC
iPlayer). The Mike Oldfield documentary is also well worth a
look...

* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If
you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk.
If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello
please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk.
Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as
possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is
viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun,
spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining.
See you tomorrow...

* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a
daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia
group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels
like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The
Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html

* We should probably mention here, that
some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we
think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in
other people's websites. Honest guv!

* Jon Downes, the Editor of all
these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 54 who - together with
his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very
small kittens (one of whom is also orange) puts it all together from a converted
potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with
various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his
lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and
a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange
cat?

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. This post, however, is particularly interesting and the author should be congratulated...

STILWELL, Okla. - Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti. No matter the name a lot of believers gathered in Stilwell this weekend to share their evidence that the creature exist. "Then something happened that was monumental, that just changed how I looked at things in general," recalled one researcher as he described an encounter with a Bigfoot. A common saying when Bigfoot researchers and believers come together.

All this weekend tall tales are being told in Stillwell at the second annual Oklahoma Bigfoot Symposium.

For the speakers and guests gathered from across the country, finding Bigfoot is just part of their life.

"To me to have an experience is almost like an adrenaline rush," Ron Boles with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization said. "Some people like to jump out of planes. I like to go in the woods."

They understand that not everyone buys in to it. Randy Harrington with the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center didn't really get it he says until he came across an adult Bigfoot with its child in Oklahoma.

"Some people you are just not going to convince they are out there," Harrington said. "Other people are very accepting of the fact that these creatures are out there. I'm telling you, they're out there.

With all of their research devices, Bigfoot believers say the evidence is becoming more and more credible, with thermal technology now being used. Compared to night vision recordings, thermal technology is harder to fake researchers say.

A word about cryptolinks: we are not responsible for the content of cryptolinks, which are merely links to outside articles that we think are interesting (sometimes for the wrong reasons), usually posted up without any comment whatsoever from me. This post, however, is particularly interesting and the author should be congratulated...

Craig Sulk, Menominee, points out the area where his camera captured an image of what could possibly be a Bigfoot. The image was powerful enough to send a team of experts to investigate and record a TV documentary. EagleHerald/Mike Desotell

Cast and crew from the Animal Planet TV show “Finding Bigfoot” gathered at the home of Craig and Barb Sulk north of Menominee on Sept. 21. The crew had just been on location for another shoot in Nepal, India, before conducting the U.P. investigation. Special to the EagleHerald

By MIKE DESOTELLEagleHerald staff writer

MENOMINEE - Anyone who says there's nothing exciting going on in Menominee probably hasn't been paying close attention. There have been numerous reports of ghostly apparitions on 1st Street, brooms that stand up on their own and now perhaps the biggest story of all, a report of a Bigfoot sighting.

Bigfoot (noun) a large, hairy, apelike creature resembling a yeti, supposedly found in northwestern America. Also called Sasquatch.

Rewind the calendar to March of 2012. Craig Sulk of Menominee had several game cameras strategically placed around his wooded property. Sometime in May he retrieved the digital camera cards and started looking through the photos. When Sulk looked at the photos again over this past winter he discovered a unique three-frame sequence.

"The middle picture, there was something. I said, 'a squatch!' and we laughed," he recalled. "This is something. It's not just a shadow or a branch or a bear. Something is in that picture that doesn't belong."

Sulk pulled together a couple family members and friends and headed to the spot in the woods where the object was photographed to get an idea of just how big it was.

"I put Barb there and took a bunch of pictures with a digital camera," he said. "We came back to look at the pictures on the computer and dammit if this thing wasn't bigger than her." Barb is Sulk's wife and she stands 5 feet 8 inches tall.

If the object photographed really was a Bigfoot, the Sulks wanted to know for sure, so they turned to the experts from the TV show "Finding Bigfoot" which airs on Animal Planet, a satellite television channel owned by Discovery Communications.Read on...

On this day in 1881 the author P.G. Wodehouse was born. Wodehouse is best known as the author of the BlandingsCastle and Jeeves novels, as well as very nearly ruining his career for good with a series of ill-advised broadcasts from Germany during World War II.

Wodehouse claimed to have intended the broadcasts as comic satire but unfortunately most of the British public and the establishment mistook it for collaboration with the Germans similar to the Lord Hawhaw broadcasts.
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